Thank you, Delilah, for having me as a guest blogger on this special day!

Today is my birthday. Many people I know stopped caring about birthdays sometime in their mid-twenties. After that pivotal 21st, which marked the ability to go bar-hopping using your actual ID, birthdays seem to be just one more reminder of the slippage of time. One more year older and, if you’re lucky, one more year wiser.

Some people don’t care for their birthdays because it’s another step towards their own mortality. Others, like my husband, simply don’t like the attention.

I am not one of these people. I love my birthday. It’s the one guilt-free day of the year I get to enjoy being fussed over, and I can be as lazy as I like. And I get pie – because everyone knows, there’s no calories in anything you eat on your birthday.

Over the years, I’ve had some truly terrific and truly terrible birthdays. My 21st birthday was spent in a foreign country, mostly by myself, watching Princess Di’s funeral. Kind of a letdown. My 39th, however, was one of the best I ever had, with a surprise party back in my hometown that included friends and family I hadn’t seen in years. My adult stepchildren even made the five-hour trek north to be there.

I’m now firmly ensconced in my 40s, and I still love marking my birthday as much this year as I did when I was 5, 16, or even 39. With every passing year, I find I give one less care – about what people think, about what society expects, about what a woman my age is supposed to be/think/do. Instead, I can focus on what I love – my family, my friends, my writing. It’s incredibly liberating.

Each birthday, to me, isn’t a step closer to “old age” or “knocking on death’s door”. It marks the passing of yet another amazing year – one that saw two more published books, children’s milestones, a special anniversary. And it presents another challenge for the next year. If this year was so good, how am I going to make the next even better? I don’t know… but I can’t wait to find out!

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Cate Tayler is a beach baby, born and raised on the Connecticut coastline. She met the love of her life while serving in the US Air Force, and after extensive overseas travel, they are now raising their four children in the wild suburbs of Maryland.

Love Me Harder, the next installment in her Mystic Point series, releases October 1st.

Love Me Harder

Love Me Harder (Mystic Point #3)

Take two spicy chefs. Stir in a meddling mentor and a deadline for success. Pepper with hot sex and longing looks. A recipe for love…or will it all go up in flames?

The First Course…

Juliet Winslow earned her saltiness. The sassy chef made a fresh start in Mystic Point after divorcing her cheating bastard of a husband. Now the renowned head chef of the local French bistro is living the free life she wants, surrounded by good friends and the occasional casual fling. Until one tempting night with a scrumptious cowboy gives her a taste of what she’s missing.

The Main Course…

Nate Faulkner is on a mission. After discovering the truth of his parentage, the cowboy chef left his Montana home determined to prove his worth to his family and the father he yearns to know. His chance comes when his mentor agrees to invest in a restaurant with him, a small French bistro in a beach town in Connecticut. Nate has big plans for reinventing the place, but the tasty head chef who comes with the business is cooking up all sorts of distractions and threatening to throw his carefully planned menu into chaos.

Dessert…

A battle of wills is being whipped up in the kitchen. The harder Juliet and Nate fight against the attraction simmering between them, the hungrier they get for one another. But do they have the right ingredients for a happily-ever-after?

Preorder now – Price goes up after release!
https://catetayler.com/book/love-me-harder-mystic-point-3/